Psychiatric Technicians
What the pay figures show
- The District of Columbia pays psychiatric technicians the most, $67,430. It still pays the most after tax. What it does not do is stay ahead once you count what living there costs. Level that out and Nebraska wins, at $51,308. Same work. A wage that goes further.
- For psychiatric technicians, the District of Columbia leads both nominally at $67,430 and after tax — state income tax differentials are not large enough here to disturb the ordering. Regional price parity is: deflating take-home by each state's price level puts Nebraska first at $51,308. The adjustment that matters for this occupation is therefore cost of living rather than tax, which is the opposite of the assumption most relocation comparisons start from.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$45,130
People doing it
156,960
Highest paid
$67,430
DC
Best off, really
$51,308
NE, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$35,090
Highest tenth
$60,750
Lowest, really
$30,432
LA
States with data
49
National average
$46,610
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
90.38%
NE, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Where you do this job matters enormously. The best state pays roughly twice what the worst does. Prices alone cannot explain a gap that size. Level everything out and the range still runs $30,432 to $51,308.
- About 156,960 Americans work in this job, on a middle wage of $45,130. Big enough that where you live changes the arithmetic.
- This job is not published everywhere — 49 jurisdictions have a figure, with $45,130 in the middle. Where one is missing, it was never released. The District of Columbia tops the ones that are.
- Geographic dispersion in psychiatric technicians is unusually wide: the top state's median is approximately double the bottom's, a spread that price differentials cannot account for. The real-terms range, after tax and price deflation, still runs $30,432 to $51,308 — so the variation reflects genuine differences in local labor markets rather than a nominal illusion.
- With 156,960 workers, psychiatric technicians sits in the middle of the BLS headcount distribution. The state-level spread described above therefore applies to a meaningful population rather than a niche one.
- 49 jurisdictions carry a published median for psychiatric technicians. ⚠️ Suppression is not random: it correlates with small state-level samples, so the reported set skews toward larger employers of this occupation.
Pay band: Psychiatric Technicians
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $35,090 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $45,130 |
| Top tenth earn over | $60,750 |
| This salary | $45,130 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
Where these numbers come from
| BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates, time-series bulk download (oe.data.0.Current) | as of 2025-05-01 |
|---|
Steps in Psychiatric Technicians
The national median for this job
$45,130around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $35,090 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $45,130 |
| Top tenth | $60,750 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Psychiatric Technicians, state by state
The national median for this job
49states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Louisiana · $31,440 |
|---|---|
| Highest | District of Columbia · $67,430 |
| Spread | $35,990 |
One dot per state that publishes this job. A missing state means suppressed data, not zero pay.
Best paid, and best off
The national median for this job
| Texas pays | $39,970 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $41,132 |
Median pay against the same pay once BEA price parities are applied.
Every state, three ways
Sorted by what the money is actually worth. "Kept" is take-home for a single filer after federal, FICA and state income tax. "Really worth" divides that by the state's own price level, so a dollar in each row buys the same thing. Tap a state to put your own salary into it. States BLS does not publish for this job are absent — that means no published figure, not no work.
| State | Median pay | Kept after tax | Really worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| NE | $57,370 | $46,370 | $51,308 |
| DC | $67,430 | $53,331 | $48,131 |
| OR | $59,820 | $45,561 | $43,507 |
| NY | $58,080 | $46,308 | $43,027 |
| AK | $51,650 | $43,681 | $42,944 |
| CT | $55,500 | $44,472 | $42,890 |
| MO | $45,840 | $37,795 | $41,188 |
| WA | $52,470 | $44,340 | $40,843 |
| NV | $46,450 | $39,503 | $40,733 |
| NJ | $54,040 | $44,163 | $40,560 |
| VT | $47,560 | $39,057 | $40,418 |
| HI | $55,150 | $43,745 | $40,277 |
| IA | $42,910 | $35,639 | $40,149 |
| RI | $48,520 | $39,766 | $39,213 |
| KS | $43,780 | $35,203 | $39,130 |
| GA | $46,250 | $37,633 | $38,917 |
| ND | $39,960 | $34,288 | $38,712 |
| VA | $48,320 | $38,987 | $38,697 |
| MA | $52,000 | $41,682 | $38,510 |
| CO | $47,430 | $38,911 | $38,381 |
| ME | $45,320 | $36,856 | $37,957 |
| AZ | $45,640 | $38,113 | $37,697 |
| IL | $46,200 | $37,160 | $37,590 |
| MI | $43,140 | $35,260 | $37,438 |
| ID | $41,490 | $34,172 | $37,377 |
| SC | $40,970 | $34,577 | $37,109 |
| PA | $43,930 | $36,129 | $37,055 |
| TN | $39,800 | $34,159 | $36,923 |
| KY | $40,370 | $33,322 | $36,833 |
| IN | $40,910 | $33,874 | $36,746 |
| OK | $39,060 | $32,308 | $36,594 |
| NM | $39,020 | $32,822 | $36,313 |
| OH | $39,140 | $33,269 | $36,236 |
| NH | $44,660 | $38,064 | $36,133 |
| MT | $39,190 | $32,584 | $36,106 |
| CA | $49,140 | $40,523 | $35,995 |
| FL | $43,570 | $37,188 | $35,948 |
| WI | $40,290 | $33,420 | $35,898 |
| NC | $40,630 | $33,714 | $35,813 |
| MD | $45,520 | $36,957 | $35,547 |
| TX | $39,970 | $34,296 | $35,293 |
| AR | $35,930 | $30,179 | $34,886 |
| UT | $40,770 | $33,124 | $34,867 |
| MN | $40,300 | $33,224 | $33,758 |
| MS | $35,320 | $29,239 | $33,495 |
| AL | $36,680 | $30,094 | $33,449 |
| WV | $34,100 | $28,722 | $31,995 |
| DE | $38,410 | $31,478 | $31,714 |
| LA | $31,440 | $26,885 | $30,432 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for psychiatric technicians as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $45,130, which means half of everyone doing this work earns less than that. Where you land depends on how long you have done it, who you do it for, and which city you do it in.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for psychiatric technicians. It is the simplest case on purpose, so the states can be compared against each other rather than against each other's family circumstances. City income taxes are not counted. On that household, the District of Columbia keeps the most at $53,331.
- The price adjustment for psychiatric technicians uses a statewide figure, and states are not uniform. A city and a rural county in the same state can differ more from each other than two states do, so treat the real-terms comparison as a direction rather than a precise answer — Louisiana anchors the bottom at $30,432. The wage data and the price data also come from different years, because that is how each is published.
- These are distribution medians for psychiatric technicians, with a national value of $45,130. They describe a midpoint rather than an expected offer, and the within-occupation spread — visible in the tenth and ninetieth percentile figures — is wide enough that a state-level median is a weak predictor for any individual worker.
- The household modeled for psychiatric technicians is a single filer, standard deduction, no dependants, no pre-tax contributions. Holding the household constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful; it also means the absolute figures overstate liability for most real filers. On that basis the District of Columbia retains the most, $53,331. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms figures for psychiatric technicians deflate take-home by a statewide regional price parity, which conceals substantial intra-state variation — metropolitan and non-metropolitan price levels within one state frequently differ by more than two states differ from each other. The wage and price series also carry different reference periods, as each is published on its own schedule, so the adjustment is directionally sound rather than precisely dated.